Wednesday, 25 September 2013

If there’s one thing I enjoy about Riddick, it’s that the
character is a survivor. The story of Vin
saving his baby is an interesting one worth noting. With the rights in his
power and his credit as producer, Vin now has the chance to slim down the
bloated and dull elements that made Chronicles of Riddick such a misshapen
beast. The character of Riddick fared better in Pitch Black, a solid Sci-Fi B
movie that I found adequate, yet was embraced by many.

Making the third Riddick entry, a smaller scale picture is a
decent idea. Yes, there may be less money involved, but in all honesty who
really thought the character of Riddick would thrive in that more large scale
environment? Like Dredd, having Riddick
exist to live out these smaller, more self contained adventures is a good way
to go in a world where so many larger scale “epics” feel that they have to
destroy a city to get viewers to care.

Some of the more needless mythology is stripped down in the
beginning of this third adventure with most of what happened in the second film
reduced to a near pointless cameo appearance. We’re given Riddick in a near
desolate world, having to having to survive as well as he can off the land. A
difficult task as most of what inhabits the land seems hell-bent on trying to
kill him. This is perhaps my favourite section
of the film. To have our main character on his own for so long, with almost
nobody to interact with, tackling the elements is quite a brave thing to do in
this day and age. Riddick seems to hint that it’s a film that willing to take a
few risks. Then the rest of the cast turn up.

The film’s tone shifts, but not for the better. The harsh
environment moves to the background as a quite boring bunch of stock characters
come forth and talk about things that aren’t particularly interesting, while
Riddick employ a stalk and slash affair that does little to stand out (save one
head splitting sequence). The films climax appears to be a throwback that may
engage bigger Riddick fans than I, but by then I was too drained of interest
from what had happened before. Oh and then there’s the whole sexism argument
that’s cropped up.

Yes, there’s been talk of strong talk from British critics
stating that the exchanges with Vin’s Riddick and Katee Sackhoff’s Dahl
character reek of horrible, vulgar sexism. I don’t wish to dismiss this issue.
I feel the issues that females have in media is bad enough, when we jump into
sub-cultures such as Sci-Fi it often gets much worse. However looking back at the film and
listening to an interesting counter-point from a good and wise friend, I did
wonder why it’s this film that appeared to be the straw that broke the camel’s
back for the likes of Helen O’ Hara. I do believe she has a point that the
writing of the Dahl shows a frustrating doe-eyed change that occurs with the
film that feels tonally off (than again Sackhoff’s performance is surprisingly
off key). Yet looking at the likes of better movies which work around the same
pulp and are way more popular often don’t appear to gain as much scorn,
particularly now. Considering the likes
of Escape from New York or even branching off to the works of Agento and De
Palma (whose work is currently being strongly revised), Riddick seems to getting slammed a hell of a lot.

Not to say that the film is not at fault. Riddick at one
point makes a comment that makes him sound more like an adolescent tweeter
faceless lipping off to a feminist journo than a badass. But I found myself
considering that the film is so bland that crappy sexual politics is the only
thing that could spark any conversation of this film.

Despite holding a certain amount of B movie charm and Diesel
obviously having a fondness for this project, I found that Riddick held such a
lack of interest, that the talk surrounding the film was far more interesting
than the film itself. Do I find the
gender issues problematic? Yes, but with that said I’d rather Hollywood get off
its arse and create a Wonder Woman I’ll remember then helping Vin Diesel and
David Twohy bring about a slightly offensive Riddick film that will most likely
be forgotten.

Based loosely on an even more insane true story, Pain &
Gain finds Michael Bay at the height of his excesses. The film is homophobic,
xenophobic and sleazy in all the ways we expect a Bay film to be. Yet as the
film isn't aiming dubious messages at the world’s youth (see Transformers), the
blow is softened somewhat. The nastiness of the story the film is based on is
in fact perfect for a director like Bay who revels in the delinquency of it
all. The film is full of discrepancies (composite characters, altered facts)
but it doesn't seem to matter. In his own cartoony way, Bay has crafted a film
that at its highest points satirises the desperation that infects some who
chase the elusive American Dream. It’s Scarface by the way of The 3 Stooges.

Bay mines all the techniques that make many hate him, but
his excessiveness only seems to aid the film. The forever roaming camera
captures these exasperated characters in heavily saturated colours. The extreme
close ups capture every ounce of sweat drenched anxiety that befouls these
despicable creatures. The canted angles and hectic cross cutting only seem to
serve the skewed views of these criminals. Even the multiple voice over narration from
nearly every character in the film, plays into the mania of it all. Like
soulless vultures; the various voices (full of juxtaposition as opposed to what
we’re seeing) highlight the hollowness of these people.

It’s easy to hate Pain & Gain because it captures the
vapid nature of its characters acutely. Delving head first into the griminess
of its story, the characters talk in infomercial platitudes. They take work out
breaks when the grisly shit hits the fan. Bay throws this amped up aggression
right in our faces and doesn't let, but I never found myself aligning myself
with the characters. I felt there was more than enough distance for me to pity
their ignorance and laugh at them then with them.

The films humour is often hit and miss, yet when the lurid
nature of the piece hits the right spot, there is an amusement about it that
will tickle a few. Bay still really needs to reign in his bizarre issues with
homosexuals (there was no elements of this in the actual story), while his
attitudes to race and females are still as crude as ever. However, I must
maintain that some of this works towards the characters we are observing. To
sanitize the nastiness of this story would be a disservice. Fact is, as grim as
the tone of this movie may be; it’s still not as nasty as what actually happened.
That Bay manages to mine something “enjoyable”
out of this, says more about me than anything, but there’s something in the
blackness of it all that entertained me. I've said it before; you gotta laugh,
or else you’ll cry.

Pain & Gain looks to attack the worse aspects of
American materialism in plain sight. From the garish colours, and over indulgent
direction (although Bay has eased up on his editing), to the arrogant,
dunderhead performances (Johnson’s relapsed, meatheaded addict is a highlight)
of the main cast. Everything plays into the sordid mentality of culture that’s
able to cultivate sociopaths and all of this is wrapped within a high octane
package that only Bay could deliver. I have to admit that after the 447 minutes
of robot smashing that Bay gave us, Pain & Gain seems much more toned down
and focused in its action. Again, nothing hits the peaks of some his earlier
works, however compared to the fallen revenges of the dark of the moon,
everything is little bit more engaging. I guess one of the reasons is that Bay
isn't shilling this to adolescents.

Saturday, 21 September 2013

My viewing relationship with James Wan (director) and Leigh
Whannell (writer) isn’t a great one, but it’s not a terrible. Despite
originally being a massive fan of Saw upon its release, the two have done
little to wow me since their début. There’s no doubt that the relationship is a
fruitful one. Between them; their films have made serious bank at the box
office. It also didn't surprise me that
due to Wan’s ability to wrap action orientated shoots quickly, he’s taking on
the next Fast and the Furious film in time for next year. I do hope however,
that Wan gives us a stronger effort with that massively budgeted franchise than
the limp wristed entry we’re given here. I found Insidious: Chapter 2 not only nonsensical
(time travel? Honestly?), but it’s also tedious as a horror movie.

Critic Mark Kermode has noted that film’s like Insidious:
Chapter 2 are horror films for people who dislike horror and I’m inclined to
agree, to a point. Wan is clearly cine-literate and Chapter 2 borrows liberally
from the likes of The Shining (1980), The Astronauts Wife (1999), The Entity (1982) and Poltergeist (1982) for many of
its scenes but does so in such an obvious way that you feel that Wan is hedging
bets that his audience doesn't know or no longer care about the films that he’s
borrowing from. Wan then strips each
reference of the atmosphere that made the films what they were and instead
fills very sequence with protracted BOO moments that annoy rather than
unsettle.

It’s strange that one of the producers on this feature was
Oren Peli; a man whose claim to fame was orchestrating the extremely popular
Paranormal Activity, a film’s tension was provided by capturing those disturbing
hours where seemingly nothing happens. Peli knew just how uneasy someone could
feel due to the power of stillness. Insidious: Chapter 2 betrays this by
manhandling the viewer whenever it can. The camera pans, scans and zooms to
absolute distraction, while the films score and loud bangs invade your eardrums
at very moment. It’s all more than a little too much.

This may not have been an issue if the characters and story
we were observing were compelling. The films confounding screenplay is never
particularly interesting when Wan actually utilises downtime. Not only happy to
rip off nearly every cliché in the book, the films cardboard characters have to
utter some extremely tin eared dialogue. A conundrum soon appears. We have a
film that’s often too loud to get the best of out of it, yet when it actually quietens
down...it’s not worth listening to.

Going back to the idea established in the second paragraph,
films like Insidious: Chapter 2 seem to be catering to a generation who believe
that true horror is how high the popcorn flies. The worrying aspect is not that
these people dislike horror, but that the factors behind what is considered a
scary movie have shifted. With one of the current arguments about cinema being
the “second screen experience” and whether or not there should be special
requirements for those who can’t be torn away from their social networks. It is
no surprise that we are given a film with no real narrative, but exists to make
the viewer jump to attention every other minute?

Saturday, 14 September 2013

It would be easy to consider Drinking Buddies as “mumblecore
getting an upgrade, but that would be a little bit of a lie. It’s been just
over a decade since this wave of naturalistic, low-fi films first appeared with
2002’s noble but uneven Funny Ha Ha. However the sub-genre has been making
leaps and jumps with every other entry, and much of the mumblecore crew have
made themselves known names. Greta Gerwig looks set to be a generation’s indie
queen. Mark Duplass has been making me guffaw in The League and Lena Dunham? Well let’s just say Girls may become one of
the most important female driven series of the tweenies (is that what we call
this decade?)

That said, Drinking Buddies is a large jump from my previous
viewings of Swanberg’s earlier work. While you’d be hard pressed to find a U.K
copy of Kissing on the Mouth, with its rawer than butcher’s meat look at sex
and relationships, Drinking Buddies has the kind of gloss that will make less adventurous
film fans feel right at home. The film also features a cast that just wouldn't
be seen in Swanberg’s earlier films. Credit should go to Swanberg’s prolific
work and plaudits here, as now his work can commend stronger, more accomplished
actors for his work (Gerwig aside of course).

The cleaner aesthetic and cast are certainly a shock for a
viewer who knows Swanberg for his smaller works and not necessarily for the
better. Thematically Drinking Buddies is still the kind of white first world
problems I find myself oddly attached to (Yet, I’m cold to Richard Curtis...go
figure), but the jump from the rugged, D.I.Y feel, to something more mainstream
is a large jump and a jarring one. Not everyone will have this issue, but what
excited me so often about the mumblecore movement was how the messiness of the
characters lives seemed mirrored within the aesthetic. The upgrade in style does
not mesh as well as before. It may just be me, but something feels missing from
the piece and I really believe it’s this. Then again my favourites of the
sub-genre (In Search of a Midnight Kiss, Medicine for Melancholy) have a keener
visual eye than perhaps Swanberg, who appears focused on the improv work
between the characters.

Like many of the mumblecore movies I’ve seen, I do enjoy how
characters interact and develop. The female characters in particular. While the
men are often the schluby, slacker types that we often find everywhere in
romantic media these days (note the perfectly cast Jake Johnson from New Girl),
the women hold a sense of control and emotion that I always find appealing.
They’re smart but not always right, emotional but not needlessly hysterical. I
find that if I take a dislike to girls like Olivia Wilde’s Kate (the best
performance I’ve viewed from the actress), it’s never for long and it’s mostly
because they truly have an amount of control that doesn’t feel held by what we
expect a female character should do. Swanberg’s
choice on a heavily improvised screenplay is effective. Emotional moments turn
on a sixpence, even if not as strong as previously seen.

Drinking Buddies does work, despite the shellshock of its
more commercial aspects. There’s no doubt that there is something taken away
from before and that the same roughness that had me drawn to these kinds of
films is missed. It’s clear from the films affectionate look at fragile foundations
of bosom buddies, that this is not Swanberg “selling out” in the conventional sense. Yet give me a store
brought video camera and a few actors that don’t nail there scenes as well as
Anna Kendrick does, and I feel there would be something even stronger.

Monday, 2 September 2013

A film that
is destined to polarise the audience with its abstractness, Magic Magic is a
film that will take people to the brink of irritation or sympathy but if it
gets one thing right, it’s the fact that it doesn’t wait around for you to get
your head around it.

Set in
Chile, Magic Magic is a thriller plays with cultural arrogance in the same vain
as Repulsion or Frantic, yet seems influenced by the fractured psychology
of Polanski’s most famous features also. Here we have a woman who is culturally
and emotional isolated amongst a group of people too juvenile and ignorant
fully understand what may be at play. The film can feel distant as there’s no
sign posts telling you where to go, but even when the film treads on the line
of obtuseness, the basic aspects of the narrative is simple enough to follow. As a whole the film doesn’t pound its note as
hard as Aronofsky (Black Swan) or hold the pomp of Von Trier (Melancholia), but
it understand simple dreads and fragile emotions with an assured deftness of
touch.

The island,
in which the film is set, becomes the largest signifying aspect, morphing
into a physical and emotional quarantine for the pale faced Alicia (a brilliant
Juno Temple). One scene has Alicia out with her new found friends as they go
cliff jumping. All except Alicia are able to jump in. She is quite literally
unable to take her feet of the island, a place which has brought forth a huge
amount of disconnection to her. Like Polanski at his best, the island slowly
shapes itself into a prison.
Cinematographer Christopher Doyle takes centre stage here, capturing the
off kilter mood with near perfect composition, and shooting the landscape in
such a way that even nearby animals take on ominous presence with their
gaze.

The films main strength
is in how it maintains its tone throughout. The ambiguous nature of the film is
kept in balance due to Temple’s fragile performance. It becomes apparent that the
film subtly changes from a more conventional thriller with horror tropes into a
subtle cry for help. We are once again seeing yet another “delicate woman in
trouble” and Magic Magic doesn’t reach the same heights as the likes of Amer,
Black Swan or Carrie But Temple keeps us engaged throughout. Having such strong
casting in place, makes the “woman in peril” such a sticking point in cinema.

Cast-wise; it will very likely infuriate more casual viewers that the
film cares little about the fact you may know these actors from Harry Potter,
Superbad or otherwise. That said I'm not shocked to see Emily Browning in this
considering her work in The Uninvited/Sucker Punch. Michael Cera does well with
a one note performance.

The pacing is a little wayward and the film doesn’t really push anything
in the way of originality. However Magic Magic is a nightmare film which
unsettles well as it toys with the lead’s fractured state. Magic Magic will
only really turn on those with a particular taste for these things. The films
conclusion can possibly leave you aggravated, but only if you don’t fall for
Doyle’s beautiful camera work and Temple‘s display.

Dull is not a word that I would use to describe, Paul Schrader,
Bret Easton Ellis or Lindsey Lohan and yet The Canyons is a subpar piece that
can only be summed up by that word. Ellis’ twitter spats; Lohan’s drug hell or Schrader’s
upbringing would bring more interesting tales to our attention. What we have
here is an over egged piece of softcore trash gussied up to try and be more
interesting that it actually is. Don’t look at me as if I dislike trash. I
remember recording Wild Things onto VHS tape. I was around when Sky Movies
seemingly had all there shoddy thrillers before Channel 5 moved in. I’d be happy
if The Canyons had a shred of the schlocky fun that some of those films had.
Unfortunately it’s a turgid mess.

We open to a montage of disused cinemas, possibly alluding
to the decline of cinema, perhaps it’s aiming at an ideal even loftier. It
doesn’t matter as the film never really brings the point home. If The Caynons
was able to transplant its love for architecture on to its characters, we’d
have something tangible to grab on to. But what can we say about the people
that we follow in this feature? Is there anything that they say or do that is
worth our time? Ellis has often written about vapid, cynical people, but
they've never been bland.

It’s easy to attack The Canyons for the sake of it, like so
many people who do with popular celebrities that they claim to hate. But the
film is truly a poorly constructed one, in a year where similarly sordid tales
have been release with greater focus. I was not the biggest fan of Harmony
Korine’s florescent nightmare; Spring Breakers, yet that film was at least well
crafted in its execution of hedonistic emptiness. The Caynons makes even a
basic shot reverse shot exchange feel like a chore.

The problem is; one can pick up on the films issues from the
get go. With its limit budget, amateur actors and troubled lead actress, you
get the feeling that pickups and reshoots would never be the order of the day.
Far too often it feels like every shot taken is the first and only one. It
certainly feels like the case with James Deen whose Bateman-lite character
comes across as completely unthreatening. Deen’s enthusiasm does not match his
talent and his graceless display seems to stem from a lack of direction more
than anything else. Compare Deen’s
Christian to the disaffected gaze of Sacha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience
and there’s a clear gulf in the quality.

But then again we’re dealing with a film in which Schrader, unlike Soderbergh, does little to play to the strengths of everyone involved. The juxtaposition of
outrageousness and emptiness that looms over the work of Ellis is never utilised,
while the voyeurism that litters Ellis’ works is also badly executed. But The
Caynons is not really about that complexity. Its simplistic script is weak when
compared to Ellis’ more popular long reads. Frustratingly, there’s nothing in
the film that elevates it above its limitations.

You might have noticed I’ve said little about the films main
draw, Lindsey Lohan. Mostly because there’s not that much to say. The actress
has garnered praise elsewhere, but I found nothing of true interest in the
role. Her face; now altered by surgery and caked with make-up captures the
burnt out impression which her character needs for the role, but her actual
performance gives very little. Much like the rest of the film, Schrader’s lack
of control and Ellis’ poor script leave Lohan up the creek without a paddle.